matt_s

Stavards nods with Koji's description. The goal isn't to fortify long term. It's to first get a sense of the area, maps and all that more or less. Then, to ensure that use of the areas are denied to the enemy by destroying any of their outposts or scouting parties present. And lastly, to aid our use of these areas by preparing caches and hideouts for our use in future campaigning. In terms of order of battle it would be just us and a few auxiliaries. If we find a major encampment we could raise some militia and storm their lines with an augmented force. But it could be simpler to assail their lines of supply instead. Repairing that ship sounds like a very sound idea indeed.

Evening, said Celeg as a manner of greeting somewhat understated given the circumstances. The mist of his breath blew forth from his mouth, a reminder of the winter cold and that he still lived with hot blood in his veins. Not as hot as he would have liked, given said winter cold. By my understanding which is not much better than yours to be sure it is or rather was some sort of undead giant rabbit moose ... miscreation? There's a bunch of them in that old dwarf mine a few miles out. But three less than there were this morning. Think of it as a sibling of sorts to the one you got mounted on your wall. Impressive specimen, that, I have to say if I have not said so already. If you want this one you'll have to argue with Gert for it or so I think. I'd advise not being in bowshot for that conversation, hah! Oh, we did check on the rest of the caravan. High spirits and good health, all. If I could trouble you for something warm to get the chill out of my bones and a bag of apples or the like. Celeg paused, realizing the slight unusual nature of the back half of that request. It's uh, for the horse. Greenleaves has been put to it pretty hard the last few miles.

Tharnakalian pauses. Oh. I'll take the shield I suppose but I rightly can't say one way or another how much credit we deserve in this. Still, it's a damn poor thing to enslave another. Don't sit well with me and it bloody shouldn't I reckon. Won't be sharing a round with Bertrand soon or ever that's for sure. I'd spit on the ground but I'd rather not dirty your establishment.

huh I didn't connect those dots because i'm dumb. that's... interesting. what better way to RP a low int character than to not revise my own IRL mistakes though lol...

Tharnakalian shakes his head. We'll only come from the shield when we have him from the grip of the bandits for a certainty and that time ain't come yet. Just wanted to keep you appraisaled, that's all. But whether by guile or gold or force of arms, we will uphold our end of the deal.

shameless metagaming but the ligneous dissolution spell at lvl 1 throws a wrench shall we say into naval combat....

The burst of gunfire and the issuing smoke of black powder is far less impressive than the roar of dynamite a few heartbeats earlier. But it is purposeful in a way that the raw violence of those few small sticks was not... Mickey's shot seems well aimed but only serves to raise the ire. Yet the luck of the fellow would not last. Malakai's rifle shot tears a small hole in the bandit's gut, and this does have the effect that perforation by lead has on a man. The bandit staggers. Then Sloan fires. And the bandit dies. The remaining bandit can count. One is less than three. He vaults into the ferry boat resting on the riverbank and begins to cast off. He will need to push off from the soft soil however to get free. An easy task when not accompanied by incoming gunfire... crunch 3 dodge rolls for Green if its an 8 gauge (the highest damage) its 5d+2. You have the ST for it (ST 15 in 3E converts down to 12 STR in 4E) and RCL doesn't matter if you are shooting one barrel at a time. Mickey does no dmg (duster has DR 1), Malakai sends negative, then Sloan causes a failed HT roll and death.

Aye, well spoken. Stavard says as he mulls it over. We have some time yet to work things out. Of course securing this place will be crucial. Koji and to a lesser extent I have some expertise in those matters. And then we will have some time to determine a course of action. Preliminary rangings rather than a full commitment and the prospect of a winter in the field is what I'd vouch for. Stavard spat. Home by winter is always a sucker's bet, one of my mates who did a few years in the Navy said.

sounds like somebody had a really bad case of the mondays. this sounds fun. i'd be interested and should have the time for this. I think short format games work pretty well in pbp.

Tharnakalian gets the gist of what Dougal is up to, finishes his drink, and slips out of the tavern. He tries to find Karg - presumably in his smithy if he is not in the tavern - and will say to the effect, One of my mates is talking with Bertrand in the tavern about essentially buying a release for Gern. One way or another, he's getting freed tonight. And if it's gonna be the hard way, if you've got mates good in a fight, well everyone will be in that tavern yonder. May your bellows blow strong and your hammer strike true.

I'll let you have one of the weapons that the first bandits had, I think they were Henry rifles but I'll check tonight. Makes sense you would have taken one of those

the mageslayer arts in the atlas splatbook (and the SRD) are, maybe some others. Suppress Magic high mage art is basically extirpate arcana on an art. I doubt there's anything too broken though because you can already go warrior/mage dual classing.

i'm trying really hard not to use the phrases "cutting off way" or "with zeal and with bayonets only" in character hah. but i will say the sacking of the outpost is a good in-universe example of "the cutting off way of war" - an isolated outpost is deliberately attacked and overrun by storm and destroyed, and the attackers retreat afterwards having created buffer space between their territory and "ours". that Foci is probably fine, just might want to give a once-over the actual selections to avoid any weirdness and also avoid any level-gated arts. The expending effort bit is a tad weird as many arts to use them also require effort but those tend to be the potent ones like a spell like effect to stun the target or to grant the entire party temporary flight. Generally speaking though one Foci pick is worth a lot more than a single art. If I decided that i hate spellcasters and i wanted to power game i'd just pick up nullfier and snap attack the casters aggressively every combat.

The sight of his own breath reminded Stavard of the coming winter still long off and yet not far off enough for what they perhaps needed to do. Winter will be hard, in the field and even here. We'll need to carefully consider our course of action. Cold we can handle, but fighting the war of ambuscades in the snow is another thing entire. Forage would be sparse, snow will slow travel, and our tracks would be far easier to run down. Information on the climate would thus be of great use. Perhaps the laying of supply caches and shorter ranging scouting missions would be more prudent than a full campaign. Or we could confine ourselves to littoral raiding rather than deep inland expeditions?

KABOOM! The deputies did not so much as hear the blast but felt it. The concussion threw a thick cloud of dust and rocks into the air that pattered down as a lithogenic rainstorm upon their hats and their torsos. The telltale stench of explosives was in the air. And there was screaming below. Horses ran wild in the encampment panicked and not without reason. Flames rippled from the torn up tents casting a horrific facsimile of daylight upon the carnage. As vision cleared and the ringing ceased almost entire the trio could see the two lucky bandits who had been on watch stagger to their feet. Covered in dirt, yes, blood, no. And they were mad and they were holding rifles and they began to raise those selfsame rifles to take aim... crunch Players go first. I'll give "double rounds" a shot so you can take aim action and fire action in a single post (or move and aim or whatever suit your fancy). Player and bandit positions as in the map above. Clear vision/sightlines.